By three criteria, two biochemical and one immunochemical, the major postsynaptic density protein (mPSDp) is indistinguishable from the 50-kilodalton (kDa) a subunit of a brain calmodulin-dependent protein kinase. First, the two proteins comigrate on NaDodSO4/polyacrylamide gels. Second, iodinated tryptic peptide maps of the two -are identical. Finally, a monoclonal antibody (6G9) that was raised against the protein kinase binds on immunoblots to a single 50 kDa band in crude brain homogenates and to both the a subunit of the purified kinase and the mPSDp from postsynaptic density fractions. The purified kinase holoenzyme also contains a 60-kDa subunit termed 13. A comparison of the peptide map of .8 with the maps of 60-kDa proteins from the postsynaptic density fraction suggests that ,B is present there but is not the only protein present in this molecular weight range. These results indicate that the calmodulin-dependent protein kinase is a major constituent of the postsynaptic density fraction and thus may be a component of type I postsynaptic densities.Many synaptic junctions in the central nervous system contain a prominent specialized structure called the "postsynaptic density" (PSD) (1-5). When viewed by electron microscopy, it is a fibrous, electron-opaque thickening lying opposite the presynaptic terminal, on the cytoplasmic side of the postsynaptic membrane. The morphology of postsynaptic densities is variable. Some are thick [20-60 nm (5)] and appear to cover the entire postsynaptic surface area, whereas others are thin, often discontinuous, patches (1, 6). The former have been termed type I PSDs, while the latter are called-type II (1). Some investigators have suggested that different types of densities are associated with synapses of particular types. For example, type I PSDs most often occur in synapses that are thought to be excitatory (1,7,8), whereas type II PSDs are seen in synapses thought to be inhibitory (9, 10). This hypothesis suggests.that morphologically distinct PSDs may also contain distinct proteins that serve specialized functions associated with their particular transmitter type.In order to understand the structure and function of PSDs, various research groups have developed subcellular fractionation methods to isolate highly enriched preparations of PSDlike material (11-13). These procedures involve osmotic lysis of a subcellular fraction enriched in synaptosomes, followed by purification of junctional membrane complexes and extraction of membrane components by treatment with detergent. The detergent-insoluble residue, purified by density gradient fractionation, consists of electron-opaque, fibrous, disk-shaped structures, 20-60 nm thick and 200-500 nm in diameter (11-15). These structures are -similar in appearance and staining characteristics to type I PSDs in intact fixed tissue, and they are not produced by detergent treatment of other subcellular organelles such as mitochondria or myelin (11). Thus, this subcellular fraction is considered to be highly enriched in type...